African countries recorded 25,477 new COVID-19 infections in the past 24 hours, bringing their total caseload to 7.87 million, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Saturday.

According to an update by the continental public health body, at least 601 people have died for coronavirus-related reasons over the past day, bringing total fatalities to 198,587. The number of recoveries stood at over 7 million, it said.

Of the five geographical regions in the continent, Southern Africa registered 3.7 million cases, North Africa 2.4 million, East Africa 918,400, West Africa 610,100 and Central Africa 221,500.

According to the update, 137.7 million doses of vaccines have been supplied so far for use on the continent of 1.3 billion inhabitants, of which 104.2 million doses have been administered.

The continent plans to receive 400 million vaccine doses, with 40 million to be shipped every month after January next year, said Strive Masiyiwa last Thursday. Masiyiwa is a coordinator at the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Technical Team.

The EU has pledged to supply Africa with 200 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines by December, he said noting that this would be "the largest such commitment coming from the European Union to date."/aa